Solar projects continue to attract bids less than Rs 5 per unit

India’s latest auction of solar power projects continued to attract bids of less than Rs 5 per unit. ReNew Power was the lowest bidder for NTPC’s solar-power projects in Telangana, winning 100 MW with an offer of Rs 4.66 per unit. The other winners bidding Rs 4.67 per unit were Azure Power, which got 100 MW, and Karvy Consultants Ltd., Parampujya Solar Energy Pvt and Acme Solar Holdings Pvt, each of which got 50MW, according to two people familiar with the matter. An NTPCBSE 0.65 % spokesperson confirmed the list of winning bidders. The state-owned company had set a base price of Rs 5.04 per unit for this 350 MW auction and the winning bids were all more than 7% lower than expected. The price of solar panels has fallen in the past few months by a marginal amount of 2 to 3%, enabling us to offer this tariff,” said Sumant Sinha, Chairman of ReNew Power. The tariffs offered were higher than the previous NTPC auction as developers will have to locate land for the projects, adding to costs. At the sale in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh in December, where the level of solar radiation is broadly the same, the winning bid of Rs 4.63 per unit was made by SB Energy, a joint venture of SoftBank, Bharti Enterprises and Foxconn. In that auction, NTPC provided assured land within a solar park. India has set a target of 100,000 MW of installed solar power capacity by 2022. The country’s solar capacity was 6,753 MW in March.